unconscious one's face. The next instant Klaus had started up sitting,
caught wildly at the gunwale, and shrieked out:

"Cut the line, and row for your lives!"

A roar of laughter went up from the rest; they dropped their oars and
sat doubled up and gasping. But on the beach, before going home,
they agreed to say nothing about Klaus's fainting fit. And for weeks
afterwards the four scamps' exploit was the talk of the village, so that
they felt there was not much fear of their getting the thrashing they
deserved when the men came home.



Chapter II


When Peer, as quite a little fellow, had been sent to live with the old
couple at Troen, he had already passed several times from one adopted
home to another, though this he did not remember. He was one of the
madcaps of the village now, but it was not long since he had been a
solitary child, moping apart from the rest. Why did people always say
"Poor child!" whenever they were speaking about his real mother? Why did
they do it? Why, even Peter Ronningen, when he was angry, would stammer
out: "You ba-ba-bastard!" But Peer called the pock-marked good-wife at
Troen "mother" and her bandy-legged husband "father," and lent the old
man a hand wherever he was wanted--in the smithy or in the boats at the
fishing.

His childhood was passed among folk who counted it sinful to smile, and